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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28243869">scarr’d the moon</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousedroid/pseuds/mousedroid'>mousedroid</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Theatre, Anger, Early Modern Era, Emotional Repression, HEA eventually, Insomnia, M/M, Masturbation, Miscommunication, No Pregnancy, Obi-Wan Kenobi Is Bad At Feelings, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining Darth Maul, Rivals to Lovers, Shakespearean Language, Slow Burn, a proper butchering of coriolanus sorry shakespeare, background and past obi-wan/satine, brief mention of alcohol, brief mention of the concept of deadnaming, but no one gets physically hurt, dark siders always be proposing, enemies to lovers flavourrr, friends to rivals to lovers, reference to past loss of limb, references to stage blood, stage violence, we are talking sexy pixel clone-wars maul to be clear</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:00:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,289</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28243869</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousedroid/pseuds/mousedroid</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>[if you’re waiting for the last chapter, I’m just held up w some personal stuff but it WILL happen I swear]</p><p>“Oh Oberon, believe me...”  </p><p>Suddenly, without warning, Maul was unfurling his legs and then himself from the throne.</p><p>He stood at his full height, looking down at Obi-Wan as though the distance between them was endless and infinite, instead of only a few paces.  </p><p>“I shall not struggle to act that I wish to ruin you.”</p><p>☽☾</p><p>a shakespeare-themed obimaul au, in which prequels-era Coruscant is also early modern London</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Obi-Wan Kenobi/Darth Maul</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. PROLOGUE</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is still in draft, I’m posting to commit myself, but progress may be slow. I’ve not attempted something so ambitious before so if you like it, kudos would be treasured.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <strong>PROLOGUE</strong>
  <br/>
  <strong>EXT. THE TEMPLE</strong>
</p>
<p>Obi-Wan shouldered his way through the late-night surface crowds, hugging his tunic about him, a barque against the tide. </p>
<p>The Uscru district pretended it was genteel, but like most of Coruscant, this was a layer of gilt over a murkier truth. The Opera House gleamed not far away, but it was surrounded by the surface's usual tangle of alleys and taverns, blinding lights and dark corners. Obi-Wan knew his way well enough, of course, though tonight something about the jostle of the streets was making his heart clamour.</p>
<p>Soon, the familiar walls of The Temple were curving above him. The theatre was shaped like to a great sphere with its apex sheared away, leaving its interior open to the planet’s smoggy skies. The white walls were criss-crossed with black reinforcing girders. The sight felt like home.</p>
<p>But the stage door had been locked. Obi-Wan pushed his hair back with one hand – he had been hoping to sneak in through the tiring-house entrance, though of course he had every right to enter the playhouse he co-owned. The front door it would have to be.</p>
<p>He circled back to it.</p>
<p>Well, then.</p>
<p>
  <em>Enter.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. ACT ONE</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is the first time I’ve tried anything at all like this so, as shakespeare says, please<br/><em>pardon, gentles all,<br/>the flat unraisèd spirits that hath dared<br/>on this unworthy scaffold to bring forth<br/>so great an object.</em></p><p>I’ve aimed to be careful with tags but you can DM me on twitter @those_beasts if something needs bringing to my attention.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong><br/>
ACT ONE</strong><br/>
<strong>THE PIT<br/>
☽☾<br/>
</strong>
</p><p>Obi-Wan unfurled his hands from his sleeves, pushed the door open and strode into the groundlings’ pit. The stalls were dark and empty, only shadows seated at the long benches. The dusty ground was scuffed in darkness, the stage quiet and unlit.</p><p>Coruscant’s moon was only a smudge in the sky, but the ribbons of speeder-traffic that were passing above the open ceiling cast a silvery glow upon the scene, and showed that he was not first to arrive, as he had hoped.</p><p>Maul had seated himself in the throne that stood in the middle of the stage. He lounged, legs wide akimbo, one knee hoisted up on to the seat; the sheaf of papers that was his part drooped loosely from the hand he had slung over his knee.</p><p>It was knowingly the pose of an over-confident king; a lascivious tyrant; a braggart; a trickster.</p><p><em>Ah,</em> thought Obi-Wan.</p><p>
  <em>This is going to be hard work.</em>
</p><p>The text that evening had been <em>Hamlet, Prince of Dantooine</em>, and Maul was still in his all-black costume: tight-padded jerkin a little rucked up by his shoulders from his slouched pose, and black hose slashed to reveal blacker silk beneath.</p><p>So dressed, he almost faded into the theatre’s gloom, but as soon as Obi-Wan had pushed the door open, those yellow eyes had snapped to him with a gleam, and teeth had flashed in what could have been a smile or a snarl.</p><p>Maul’s voice drifted across the pit: deep, dark.</p><p>“I might say, <em>well met by moonlight</em>.”</p><p>“I might tell you that play is old and done.”</p><p>“Oh, so then you have forgotten.” Maul rolled his eyes and tutted. “It matters not. And surprises even less. Might I call you <em>Oberon</em>, at the very least?”</p><p>“I have <em>not</em> forgot your foolish refusal to call me by my name, <em>Maul</em>.”</p><p>“And I remember well how you only listen to a sentence if it has your name in it.”</p><p>Maul’s ten seasons of playing slick-tongued villains had left their mark. Even Obi-Wan had to admit it. The man was a master of inflection; languorous syllables were pricked into place by clipped consonants, and so low and deep you felt it in your stomach, as though he was purring directly into your ear.</p><p>Obi-Wan heard his own voice echo round the theatre, clipped and melodious, and felt a surge of annoyance at the contrast.</p><p>“If you have only come here to spit barbs, Maul, then we should both turn for home.”</p><p>“Leave if you must, but first, tell me why you came.”</p><p>The question put Obi-Wan a step behind in the dance. His tongue tangled in his mouth. “Wherefore... to rehearse? I wrote you, but if you are here you must have had my note. The first act—”</p><p>Maul cut him off. “There is no need for rehearsal, Oberon. I have my part well conned. You know, I presume, know yours? If you find yourself at a loss when the play opens three nights from hence, flit that famous smile at the six-credit seats and they’ll forgive you anything.”</p><p>The exasperation that Obi-Wan had been trying to squash from the start roiled up at last and he strode towards the stage. “I do not care what corners you cut with that paltry rabble, but Force help me, you are with our company now and our stage combat is <em>civilised</em>. If you wish to crash and rattle through your lines and then hack at someone till you blunt the stagesaber then hare back to the Lord Chancellor’s Men, where applause is cheap.”</p><p>Maul curled a lip in acknowledgement of the taunt but did not rise. Indeed, he did not move at all, but stayed slouched on the throne, looking down at Obi-Wan who now stood fuming below him, hands balled into fists inside his sleeves.</p><p>In truth, Obi-Wan knew such a jibe was unwarranted, but the enmity between rival playhouses ran deep, and really he just wanted Maul to <em>quit that throne</em>.</p><p>“<em>Oberon</em>. You’ve seen my Achilles, my Richard the Third, my Tamburlaine. I have seen your Prince Harry, your Romeo. I can admit you are skilled enough with a false blade, though you’d be as like to impale yourself with a real one.”</p><p>(Obi-Wan recrossed his arms at that, but held his tongue.)</p><p>“We know how to play a fight, and the steps of this bout have been fixed these several days.I know my part. I assume you yours. So you see, you have not yet answered my question. Let me ask you, only once more...”</p><p>There was a ring of something new in that voice – layered among the over-dramatic exasperation – something like a... plea? – as Maul asked:</p><p>“Tell me why you are here tonight.”</p><p>☽☾☽☾☽☾</p><p>The ring of sincerity threw Obi-Wan off his guard. Maul seemed to be asking a new question, one which he did not understand and could not see how to answer.</p><p>Maul was right, of course – they were both veterans of the craft, of a thousand stage melées. They knew all the tricks of the stagesabers, every calculated thrust, every precise parry, how to dodge a blow and how to make it look like one had landed.</p><p>And of late they had fought together too – with skill and careful studied professionalism, and true that had needed little rehearsal once they had been taught the steps.</p><p>But something about this scene, from a new history opening five nights hence, had made him want to rehearse again, to be sure of it. Earlier that day, in a sudden defiant humour, he had dispatched a note to Maul suggesting I.VII needed practice.</p><p>In the common way, rehearsals were kept to mornings and afternoons, before each evening’s performance, but very likely the whole company would have gathered to watch the two famous rivals try to run through their moves with civility, and to hiss like tookas at any mistakes – and so best to meet at the eleventh hour, once punters and players alike had rolled off to the tavern.</p><p>Maul had given no answer to the note, except now with his presence. Since he had not changed his dress, he must have waited here a good two hours.</p><p>By now, Obi-Wan's silence had stretched on. Maul had been waiting, an eyebrow raised in frustration, but at some invisible moment he seemed suddenly to give up.</p><p>The Dathomirian tipped his thin face skywards until his horn-tips rested against the back of the throne, and looked up towards the obscured, struggling moon.</p><p>“This scene is different than the rest, is it not,” Maul said quietly, still looking at the sky, and his voice was velvet and knives.</p><p>Obi-Wan felt the relief of being shown a way out, though he didn’t know why.</p><p>“Form IV. Not scrapping boys playing at heroics. Two men at war.”</p><p>Obi-Wan shook himself back into composure. “This was always my meaning. This is no fencing bout – it is a true fight. A war. These characters seek one another’s destruction headlong, with speed and bloodlu—”</p><p>“Oh Oberon, believe me...” </p><p>Suddenly, without warning, Maul was unfurling his legs and then himself from the throne.</p><p>He stood at his full height, looking down at Obi-Wan as though the distance between them was endless and infinite, instead of only a few paces. </p><p>“I shall not struggle to act that I wish to ruin you.”</p><p>Maul smiled then, and for a wild second Obi-Wan believed the Dathomirian was going to throw himself from the stage and sink teeth into his neck.</p><p>But the black-clad figure didn’t move another muscle.For an irrational moment, Obi-Wan found himself thinking of a spider crouched to pounce.</p><p>Of being bound hand and foot with silk.</p><p>With a flare of annoyance, he found his tongue. “We should practise in the pit, I think? There’s more room here. In case of error.” Obi-Wan gestured at the space, still strewn with what the audience had left, peach stones and mussel shells and meiluron skins.</p><p>Maul bent to pick up the pair of stagesabers next to the throne – it did not escape Obi-Wan’s notice that he has readied them – and then leapt from the stage, his limbs sprung with a fluid, heavy power.</p><p>Catching the hilt that was thrown to him, Obi-Wan confirmed the scene: “One, seven?” He wasn’t sure why, having got what he wanted, he felt so flustered. But then, trust Maul to turn a simple rehearsal into a torrid, trampled mess.</p><p>“Let us go to it.”</p><p>☽☾☽☾☽☾</p><p>Maul began to pace across his side of the pit and spun his wrist to ignite his stagesaber – not a real blade of course, but a white laser concentrated enough to bounce off another of its kind. The angles of his face were thrown into flickering shadow by its glow as the blade twirled in dazzling circles. Obi-Wan shook himself; Maul was already spitting his lines, a few cues before the fight.</p><p>
  <em>“I'll fight with none but thee; for I do hate thee</em><br/>
<em>Worse than a promise-breaker.”</em>
</p><p>The combatants circled each other, keeping a taut exact distance. Obi-Wan felt relieved to be back on solid, scripted ground. He twisted his wrist to activate his stagesaber in turn, and spoke in return, flicking distain into his voice:</p><p>
  <em>“We hate alike:</em><br/>
<em>Not Hutt owns a monkey-lizard I abhor</em><br/>
<em>More than thy fame and envy. Fix thy foot.”</em>
</p><p>Maul slammed a leg down, halting their prowling circle, and the power from his metal thigh almost shook the bare earth.</p><p>
  <em>“Let the first budger die the other's slave,</em><br/>
<em>And the Force doom him after!”</em>
</p><p>Obi-Wan sank into a tense crouch, mirroring the other’s low stance.</p><p>
  <em>“If I fly, Marcius,</em><br/>
<em>Holloa me like a ‘cat.”</em>
</p><p>Maul, back at him:</p><p>
  <em>“Within these three hours, Tullus,</em><br/>
<em>Alone I fought in your Corus’ent walls,</em><br/>
<em>And made what work I pleased: 'tis not my blood</em><br/>
<em>Wherein thou seest me mask'd; for thy revenge</em><br/>
<em>Wrench up thy power to the highest.”</em>
</p><p>Though Maul was still dressed in his Hamlet’s Dantooine court finery, in the dark it was easy to imagine him as he would be for this part: red-black face slick and painted with gore. Obi-Wan felt a stab of adrenaline that he pushed into his next words:</p><p>
  <em>“Wert thou Hector</em><br/>
<em>That was the whip of your bragg'd progeny,</em><br/>
<em>Thou shouldst not scape me here—“</em>
</p><p>He had hardly finished his line when Maul caught his cue and was sprinting toward him, exploding into a impossible leap, with sabre swung back above his head.</p><p>Ah – so he had been holding back when they were taught their steps – now the strength of his first blow nearly broke through Obi-Wan’s parry. There was no more time for thought, only <em>dodge, leap, clash, lunge, strike, miss, dodge, parry, spin, change grip, thrust, double-strike...</em></p><p>After a few dozen blows, the script called for other players to sprint onstage and assist Maul’s Coriulanus, and so there was no victory or defeat built into their choreography. This meant there was no natural halt. Obi-Wan soon realised they were looping their moves –</p><p>
  <em>miss dodge parry spin change grip thrust miss dodge parry spin change grip thrust</em>
</p><p>– and he could not see a way out.</p><p>Their steps and blows had gathered pace until they were a glowing whirl. Maul seemed to be fighting something other than Obi-Wan too; he was leading in their battle but his face was wracked, teeth bared, eyes wild and locked to Obi-Wan’s face. For a moment, it seemed as though they might spin here infinitely, locked together by a cycle of blows for the rest of time.</p><p>But instead, Obi-Wan fumbled a parry, fell back, broke their pattern. Maul gave a bellow of anguish, a raw sound torn from some private depths, then pressed forward his advantage with improvised strokes – <em>double-leap swipe slash down twist</em> —</p><p>Obi-Wan stumbled backwards, a yielding word starting on his lips —</p><p>Then Maul’s glowing stagesaber was at Obi-Wan’s throat.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. ACT TWO</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A few more tags have been added - you can always DM me on twitter @those_beasts if something needs bringing to my attention (or come say hi!)</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>(I firmly believe in not apologising for one’s own writing and yet I am about to do it. I wish I could spend all my time on this fic, I love these two so much and I just want to spend hours with the Complete Works in one hand and Wookiepedia in the other BUT my job is eating my time, I have to write on my phone in odd moments and the right early-modern word always just seems to be beyond the tip of my tongue. So I’m sorry, but we are landing firmly on ‘good enough’ for now. I hope you can see some of what I was reaching for.)</p><p>Edit to this note: those of the people that run Wookiepedia who have proven themselves transphobic can get fucked. Just wanted to make that clear.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><strong>ACT TWO<span class="Apple-converted-space"> <br/>
</span></strong> <strong>A FINE LODGING HOUSE</strong></p><p>Aufidius did have three further lines in the scene, once the fight was broken up, but Obi-Wan had found it impossible to speak, with a blunt white blade at his throat and a storm raging behind the Dathomirian’s eyes. The sword could do no damage, but still Obi-Wan felt a hot, bright tension low inside him that burned like fear.</p><p>They had stood there, both out of breath, shoulders heaving, for what must have been almost a minute, until Obi-Wan dared take a slow step back.</p><p>Maul had lowered the blade and but did not turn it off, shoulders heaving from exertion but otherwise stock-still.</p><p>And Obi-Wan had turned and strode out of the theatre.</p><p>He had not known what else to do.</p><p> </p><p>☽☾☽☾☽☾</p><p> </p><p>So now he was at his lodging staring up at the ceiling, having returned in a stupor, pulled off his garb and collapsed on to his bed.</p><p>
  <em>What in the world...</em>
</p><p>He should not have expected anything different. No matter the boy that Obi-Wan had known, Maul’s long sojourn with the Lord Chancellor’s Men had whetted him away to leave... a tempest. A weapon. A wild ‘cat.</p><p>That was what drew the crowds, of course – had drawn them to The Raxus and the Lord Chancellor’s Men, and now drew them to The Temple and the Twelve Master’s Men.</p><p>Maul and Obi-Wan has each been the bright suns of their own playhouses: each top of their playbills, though (Obi-Wan prided himself on this) for different reasons. And now they orbited one another at the same theatre, spitting out heat, each one ready to consume the other.</p><p>In theory at least. Maul was the bigger sun, he knew. Hamlet to Laertes. Coriulanus to Aufidius.</p><p>But since fate had yoked them to the same plough, they had worked in uneasy alliance. Hitherto, only the coolest words had passed between them. Though true, they had always been in company.</p><p>I’force, it was not unheard of, for a stage fight to get out of hand when humours ran hot. Nor was it new for an actor to lose themselves deep in a role, until its passions bled out at their seams. Obi-Wan was proud of his measured humour, his measured aspect – but unmistakably Maul was cut from another cloth.</p><p>Sleep was far out of reach. Obi-Wan’s mind was fretful and, <em>kriff</em>, he was monstrous hot.</p><p>He pulled off the rough blanket, rolled it up and stowed it firmly away, before sitting back down on the edge of the bed, pushing his hands into his hair.</p><p>An actor his whole life, he was well used to chasing sleep in the silent hours of the night, often resorting to the mechanical trick of soothing himself – that would serve now. It would be a moment’s work, since he could already feel a tension in his groin. He moistened a hand and slid it under his nightshirt, found himself damp with sweat.</p><p>But as his hand worked, regular and methodical at first and then a little more rhythmic, his mind was ran over and around that evening’s meeting. He could not fathom it, could not cudgel meaning from it; tried even as his breath began to catch once more to unwind any thread of sense from what Maul had said.</p><p>
  <em>Oh, so then you have forgotten. It matters not. And surprises even less.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Leave if you must, but first, tell me why you came.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>This scene is different than the rest, is it not.</em>
</p><p>Bombastic, puffed-up braggart of a man! Obi-Wan had been fine, doing well, in his own sphere, and then this howling comet had smashed back into his life and stolen his place at the front of the stage and...</p><p>Obi-Wan’s hand still stroked, gripped, almost unheeded as his mind ran on apace. What was it that he could not <em>see</em>?</p><p>
  <em>...this scene is different, is it not...</em>
</p><p>
  <em>...I shall not struggle to act that I wish to ruin you...</em>
</p><p>
  <em>...I'll fight with none but thee...</em>
</p><p>Obi-Wan’s body was finally overtaking his thoughts – jaw clenched, stomach tightening, close now —</p><p>
  <em>...for I do hate thee worse than a promise-breaker...</em>
</p><p>
  <em>...'tis not my blood wherein thou seest me mask'd...</em>
</p><p>And then Maul had him at sword-point.</p><p>The glowing tip of the blade a breath from his neck.</p><p>Forcing his chin up, baring his throat.</p><p>So he had to look into two fuming yellow-red eyes.</p><p>
  <em>...I'll fight with none but thee...</em>
</p><p>With a sharp breath through clenched teeth, Obi-Wan crashed into his climax, muscles jumping —<em> kriff</em> — snatching a cloth at the last moment, managing not to besmirch his bedclothes.</p><p>He tried to slow his breathing down, took a great gasp of air once he could untighten his jaw.</p><p>Flopping backwards on the bed, he swept his clean hand through limp hair that had stuck to his forehead. He lay there, Maul’s taunts echoing darkly in his head until he bade himself clean up his splith, and collapsed into the arms of a fitful sleep.</p><p> </p><p>☽☾☽☾☽☾</p><p> </p><p>The Obi-Wan he saw in the mirror late the next morning, who dragged his hands down his face before pushing back his hair, looked tired. His countenance was paler than usual, and in the thin light he saw that grey was beginning to overmatch the saffron of his beard.</p><p>Twin dark circles hung like eclipses under his eyes. They were playing Twelfth Cycle that night and the shadows would help Governor Orsino’s love-wracked look, he supposed. Though he’d need to polish himself back into shape in good time or there would be sharp words from Windu, who kept their account book and well knew that Kenobi’s looks drew credits from pockets like nothing else. Except—</p><p>
  <em>No.</em>
</p><p>He had woken up resolved. One of them at least had to be sensible, professional, and that meant not thinking another moment on the last night, on any part of it.</p><p>Obi-Wan had seen playing companies rent in two by squabbles and petty feuds – they were hard to evade when working so closely with companions eight days out of ten. But the Twelve Masters’ Men prided themselves on camaraderie. Their founding charter set out that no player must quarrel with another (or indeed pay court to another – where actors were concerned, courtships and quarrels were two edges of the same blade). Any disputes were to be settled in a democratic meeting; any dalliances swiftly forgot.</p><p>Obi-Wan was proud of this charter, and how dutifully he obeyed it. Not that it had been troublesome. No one from the company had ever got under his skin, either one way or the other. And his one – well, she was a patron, not a player.</p><p>Had been a patron.</p><p>
  <em>Enough.</em>
</p><p>Obi-Wan dressed hastily – breeches, dun-coloured shirt, faded jerkin, soft boots. He snatched up the flimsi of his parts and the torn gabardine he had taken home to mend – and neglected last night. Though there was no play till that evening, there were still duties to discharge: lines to con, costumes to stitch. There was always work. Audiences came to the playhouse to dream and to feel, but players came to work. There was no time for reminiscing. There was only the next line, the next, the next.</p><p> </p><p>☽☾☽☾☽☾</p><p> </p><p>The Temple was quiet; the day was hot, smoggy again from speeder-fumes. Obi-Wan took refuge on the low benches of the cheap seats and set about his his mending.</p><p>As the sun tipped over its zenith outside, young Tano wandered into the playhouse.</p><p>“Good day, Master Kenobi.”</p><p>She was dressed in an rather impractical doublet of gold brocade, over a soft blue shirt and russet hose; not for her the soft loose vestments favoured by the other players for rehearsal. She fanned herself with one hand as she collapsed in the shade that ringed the edges of the pit. It was no cooler in The Temple than in the bustle of the streets.</p><p>“My practice partner is nowhere to be found, so I’m looking for someone to run forms. Would you care to swap needle for saber, Master?”</p><p>They both knew where Master Skywalker was, of course, and that he didn’t haunt Senate House out of a politick love. The man could have been a paragon if he had given his full heart to the playhouse; instead, he had lost it among the six-credit seats.</p><p>“I’d be glad to.”</p><p>Ahsoka hopped up to the sun-drenched stage and for a moment disappeared into the gloom behind it, gone to fetch stagesabers from the tiring-house armoury.</p><p>Obi-Wan set aside the garbardine, its hem now half-darned up with neat looping stitches, as she returned. He rolled up his sleeves and she shrugged off her doublet, and they took up their positions.</p><p>Form I first to warm up, and then Form II to challenge her. They swung their blades lightly, trippingly, and Obi-Wan smiled at the balance he felt when training an apprentice both studious and skilful.</p><p>Well now – as they went on, if Obi-Wan was honest, he found she was training him more than he her. When had he become so clod-footed? Tano whirled through the poses, montrals flying, eyes bright with joy.</p><p>“Are you quite sure you needed the practice, Ahsoka?” he asked with half a smile.</p><p>And of course she knew it, flashed him a wide grin before flipping the saber to a new, backhanded grip. Ah – she had to work faster to defend, he saw – but the crowds were going to love it.</p><p>“Well, Master Yoda had some time for me,” she replied, happy in the praise.</p><p>Aye, that was it: the acrobatics, the low defensive strokes of the duelling master’s personal style. Yoda had been one of the greats – his specialism mad or heartbroken kings, his Le’aar was still talked of. Now he preferred to teach the apprentice players... and help them surprise their elders.</p><p>“Well, I wish he had warned me.”</p><p>“You fight well, Lady Tano.”</p><p>The low voice startled the both of them, sent them spinning around.</p><p>Maul had appeared on the stage. Though he was far from light of foot, they had not heard his tread over the sabers’ hum. He made a tall, dark shape on stage, leaning against one of the pillars that held up its roof, head cocked critically to one side.</p><p>Prickingly aware of his dishevelled aspect, Obi-Wan noted with a flit of annoyance that Maul looked none the worse for wear. But then again, the tattooed black pits around his eyes might hide any amount of shadows. He was lazily half-dressed – perhaps from the heat, perhaps from habit: just boots, black gaskins that rose above his waist and a faded sea-gown over wide bare shoulders. The silver ring in his left lobe caught the sun.</p><p>“It’s been a time since anyone thought I was worth a title,” grinned Ahsoka. “But I thank you.”</p><p>She dropped Maul a bow – an ironic one, though still trimmed to neatness by the time she had spent at court. Obi-Wan thought she looked half cross to be referred to by the rank she had left behind and half pleased at the form Maul had chosen. He felt a sand’s grain of respect land on the scale with which he measured Maul’s character. It seemed the braggart who cared about no-one outside his own skin could at least use the right name when it mattered.</p><p>If by rare chance the man was in a sensible humour, mayhaps they could begin anew.</p><p>“I’d be glad if we could run through our <em>Coriulanus</em> duel, Maul,” Obi-Wan said, in the general direction of the stage, hoping to sound light and airy.</p><p>Maul’s yellow eyes were narrowed, tooka-like, against the glare.</p><p>“I can think of nothing that would delight me more.” He rolled the syllables around his mouth until they came out meaning the reverse.</p><p>“Here, I am done.” Ahsoka threw her stagesaber up to Maul, who caught it.</p><p>Waited.</p><p>“Well, I’ll join you up there, shall I?” said Obi-Wan, twisting habitual sarcasm into his words before remembering his vow.</p><p><em>Be. Civil.</em> </p><p>He pulled himself up on to the stage and crossing the boards, took up his fighting stance – saber held back behind him in readiness, the other arm a counterbalance.</p><p>Maul dragged himself away from his pillar, flicked on the blade, spun it in whip-loops around his hand.</p><p>Ahsoka settled down in the shade of the stalls to watch, yawning lazily.</p><p>In the bright light, the two men blocked through through the moves of the fight in silence, and at half speed. Maul was taking care to hit his marks and not raise his eyes from the boards. The blades whooshed softly as they touched.</p><p>Strike.</p><p>Miss.</p><p>Dodge.</p><p>Parry.</p><p>Obi-Wan began to breathe more easily as he felt the night’s unpleasantness papered over by their steady rehearsal.</p><p>It had just been some kind of midnight madness, that had been left in the dark. Now with the sun hammering down on them, with Tano watching, two men met each other’s saber-strokes with poise and precision and decorum. And so with each balanced step and carefully placed foot, Obi-Wan pushed every memory of their ill meeting down, down, below the boards of the stage. Into the space they called 'hell', from whence demons crept in <em>Darth Faustus</em>, and where the winches for the trap turned in silence.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. ACT THREE</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>There’s not really a tag for this but Obi-Wan, Anakin and Ahsoka are acting in a romance and will briefly pretend to make heart-eyes at each other. It’s very fleeting and not sincere. If it’s not something you want to read, start at the moons<br/>☽☾☽☾☽☾<br/>and stop when Skywalker appears.</p><p> </p><p>Some notes on the Shakespearey historical half of this smooshed-together AU might be useful at this point. Afraid I haven’t studied this in years, so this is very broad. </p><p>Early-modern playing companies would often put on different plays every night, rather than the long runs of the same that we are used to - putting on old plays again from their repertory and then sprinkling new ones in throughout the year.</p><p>They didn’t carry out long development rehearsals, but might read through the play together, learn their parts separately, practise any set pieces and then bring it all together on stage - often extremely quickly after the play was completed. No-one was given a full script (to avoid script theft) - you were just given your ‘part’ - your lines and cues (no stage directions). </p><p>Companies would keep the same actors for years, and actors would often ‘specialise’ - there was no stigma attached to type-casting, because it made it easier to put plays on quickly. </p><p>These early-modern-Coruscanti companies operate in much the same way. They have, though, got rid of that rule about only men being allowed on stage. Though the old company names of ‘Twelve Masters’ Men’ and ‘Lord Chancellor’s Men’ (Shakespeare’s company was the Lord Chamberlain’s Men) still remain.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><strong>ACT III<br/>
</strong> <strong>THE TIRING HOUSE</strong></p><p>That night the company were playing <em>Twelfth Cycle, or What You Will</em>, a staple of their repertory. </p><p>As Viola, Ahsoka had no opening to display her talent with a blade, but she was sharp and bright enough herself to win the audience’s hearts. They whooped as she raised a trembling blade against Fisto’s dazed Aguecheek, sighed with her as she made hopeless eyes at Obi-Wan’s Govenor Orsino, and raised shouts of joy when she reunited with Shaak-Ti’s Sebastia. Tano loved this part deeply, Obi-Wan knew, had begged to be allowed it, though she had not completed her time as a prentice. Energy radiated from her as she worked. She would be a great talent.</p><p>Indeed, the whole company had set out to dazzle tonight. Some large vote had taken place in the Senate’s Star Chamber earlier that day, and now The Temple’s seats boasted what seemed like half of the galaxy’s senators, ambassadors and diplomatic aides. The stalls shone with their finery. Varactyl feathers, attached to hats or limbs as suited by species, seemed to be in fashion.</p><p>Obi-Wan caught a glimpse of a white-lead-painted face and cochineal-red lips, and frowned as he saw Anakin send all Olivia’s love-sick lines in that direction.</p><p>Fortunately Obi-Wan’s Govenor Orsino had little to do with Maul’s Malvolio, so his patience was not proved. It was, in truth, astonishing to see him dim the electricity of his presence, thread pedantry through his voice, step mincingly on heavy feet. Though, watching from the wings, he had noticed with a little annoyance that Maul had added to the prim, fussy character a habit of alternately folding his arms and tugging at his chin, as though at a beard. </p><p>The only time they were both on stage together was the final scene. Obi-Wan congratulated himself on his peace-keeping earlier that day – the scene ran smooth, the truce he understood them to have formed was intact.</p><p>Except that the dishevelled, yellow-clad and ill-used Malvolio’s final line was delivered – not to his tormentors and the audience as was usual – but directly into the eyes of Governor Orsino.</p><p>
  <em>“I’ll be revenged upon the whole pack of you.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>☽☾☽☾☽☾</p><p> </p><p>Maul did not return on stage for the jig and applause. Offee had hardly finished Feste’s melancholic song before Governor Orsino was after him, full of a hot fury that was quite out of character.</p><p>Obi-Wan pushed his way through the gloomy tangle of ropes, costumes, props and papers that filled the tiring house towards the ‘armoury’ – in truth little more than a small room with a jumble of shelves, filled with battered helms and painted bucklers and stacks of blunted pikes and all the properties required to stage the history of the war.</p><p>Plus the tall, spiked silhouette of a Dathomirian, stood with head bowed and forearm raised to lean against a shelf full of Mandalorian gauntlets.</p><p>The silhouette spat a word: </p><p>“Leave.”</p><p>By way of answer, Obi-Wan threw his stagesaber into the barrel where they were housed, pleased that it made a demonstrative clatter. </p><p>Maul span around. </p><p>He hadn’t yet changed from his Malvolio garb, comically-laced yellow stockings and a truly ridiculous saffron shirt, all frills and flounces. It was cut at the neck in a steep chevron, nearly down to the waist, that almost-fully bared his red-black-brindled chest. </p><p>The hard curves and ridges of his metal calves were more visible than usual beneath the bright-yellow cloth and tight zigzagged ribbons that traced up his legs. </p><p>But there was nothing comic in his tone, which was slow and thick with fury. </p><p>
  <em>“What.”</em>
</p><p>“I know you thrive on spite, but this is beyond all belief. You carry your petty moods on to my stage, misfire your lines, vanish from the jig and then ask what ails?”</p><p>Obi-Wan was a-fume, glad he could find words this time, hoped they cut deep. “Malvolio has no cause to direct his lines at Orsino that way – they should have nothing to do with each other, yet you play fast and loose with character, with structure – you upend the whole text!”</p><p>He did not know when he had started shouting. “If you cannot keep your part and muffle your jealousy, then I wish you would scuttle back to the under-levels. I’m sure down there such errors go wholly unmarked.”</p><p>Maul laughed.</p><p>“Such blunt words. I thought you were sharper. And... <em>jealousy</em>?” He rolled the word around his long tongue, languidly. “You think I am jealous... of this? You think that I envy you... this? This puffed-up playhouse? Its sixty-credit seats full of pompous senators and ignorant priests?”</p><p>“Trying to hear a play at The Raxus, it’s impossible – they howl like tookas at every bawdy line, you are beset by ‘stick sellers and coney-catchers – the place is drear. Meantime, The Temple plays host to the notables of the galaxy.”</p><p>Maul draw himself up to his full height, his fore-horns brushing a sheaf of arrows hanging from a low ceiling-beam, and bared his teeth in a laughing snarl. </p><p>“Oh, <em>Oberon</em>. You truly do not see. The air here is stale, <em>sycophantic</em>. Everything down pat, every syllable in its place. You have not <em>truly</em> acted ‘til you have screamed a soliloquy over the tumult of a drunken rabble, struggled to be heard over hoots and hisses until the moment when they <em>listen</em>, when they are <em>yours</em>.  In that moment, you <em>rule them</em>.”</p><p>Maul clenched a fist, red fingers in a black-tattooed palm. He should have been ridiculous, in his flounced shirt and tightly-bound bright stockings, but he was magnificent – seemed to take up all the height in the room.</p><p>
  <em>‘Magnificent’?</em>
</p><p>“If you have never felt it, you have not <em>lived</em>. It will set you free. I can <em>show</em> you, if you would <em>join</em> me, Ob—”</p><p>Suddenly Maul bit back his words, clenched his jaw. Obi-Wan saw the shade of yesternight’s expression pass over the man’s face – the wrestling back of some enormity. The effort of it was written across those angular, tattoo-fissured features; there was grief in the set of his brow, the thin line of his mouth.</p><p>Maul was wracked by some great pain, and watching him, Obi-Wan’s heart slid from anger to sympathy, to...</p><p>“<em>Yes</em>,” Obi-Wan almost said, for no reason he could fathom.</p><p>“The Temple is my home,” he said instead. “These walls, this stage, my world. Wherefore should I leave?”</p><p>Maul’s eyes glimmered in the dagger-and-shield-reflected candlelight.</p><p>”Then you have forgot the wideness of the galaxy.”</p><p>There was a silence, in which Obi-Wan’s whole body filled with lightning.</p><p>“What, no pretty make-peace reply?” </p><p>In the space of a missed breath, Maul was snarling again, the tone of entreaty fled. “You have made your choice twice over, Oberon. We are done.”</p><p>
  <em>No, it could not be – a moment’s madness – stay a moment – forbidden – – Maul –</em>
</p><p>... was gone, before Kenobi had begun to say <em>Wait</em>, though he did not know what he was going to say after, did not know what to do, had forgotten what they had argued about, had forgotten how to breathe, <em>let me come with you, do not leave me, </em>was starting after him when —</p><p><br/>
“Obi! And was that Maul just leaving? My dear fellows, why do you still tarry here? We are for the tavern!”</p><p>It was Skywalker, bounding past on his way out of the tiring-house, face scrubbed pink from removing the paint that had made him the handsome widow Olivia. </p><p>He clapped a hand on to Obi-Wan’s shoulder and practically dragged him off his feet. The man was strong for his age. </p><p>“And never mind the costume, you can have it washed, we’ve a week till this one is on again and you have to fall helplessly, embarrassingly in love with me once more.<br/>
<em>O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, </em><em>Methought she purged the air of pestilence!</em><br/>
You do it so prettily. Where is...”</p><p>They were halfway out of the tiring-house now and Maul was nowhere to be seen. </p><p>“Oh, well, he would have gone to change his garb. Do you know I heard that<em> revealing</em> Malvolio shirt was his own idea?” Anakin gave a lopsided grin. “Still can’t fathom why he’s here, thought he liked stomping about all those levels down where the playwrights don’t have to get their plays licensed by the Senate. Do you know?”</p><p>Obi-Wan shook his head, though a hope about Maul’s return was blooming in his heart, and a terror of its reversal was carving hollows in his stomach.</p><p>“But hey ho, we’ve not been short of pit-fodder since MAUL’s been printed next to KENOBI on the playbills... the man can draw a crowd, though not one I’d like to meet. Pray you spill your barbs, Obi – I know there is not a player alive you cannot fault.” Anakin gave his friend a cheerful nudge. “What think you of your great rival?”</p><p>Obi-Wan felt dizzy with revelation, with fear, with half-strangled hope. But with the habits of a lifetime, he pulled his composure back around himself like a robe and managed something akin to a smile.</p><p>“I’m sure no worse than what he thinks of me.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. INTERLUDE</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>There wasn’t an interval after the third act in early modern times, but if you’ve let me get away with everything else so far, I hope you’ll let me get away with this.</p><p>If you’re reading as I post, I am grateful for your patience.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>INTERLUDE</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>Maul had done all he could stomach and would do no more. </p><p>So it had always been.</p><p> </p><p>As young men, Maul and Obi-Wan had travelled with the Twelve Master’s Men for several seasons, as the company toured throughout the Inner Rim. Sometimes stagehands, sometimes muttering in a crowd on stage, sometimes understudies, sometimes clashing bucklers in the background of a war tableau – and always a nuisance, always inseparable, each one the pursuing shadow of the other. </p><p>They had been scrappish, carefree days, two tumbling bear-cubs adrift on the world, following the song of the stage where it led. But Obi-Wan’s love of their life shone out in all directions; Maul’s was a dark-lantern, a beam focused on a single point. </p><p><em>I can wait</em>, Maul thought. <em>He has only one heart. Perhaps it does not speak so loud as two.</em></p><p>Then the fashion changed, and theatres began to grow walls and doors, instead of being a heap of scenery and props and actors that could be bundled into a ship to hop-skip-jump across systems. </p><p>The Twelve Masters’ Men sold their ship and from the proceeds, on Coruscant the walls of The Temple began to spring up. The most splendid theatre built thus far, for the finest company of players in the Inner Rim.</p><p>Obi-Wan’s eyes were brightest when he looked out from the new stage, imagined how he could lift the people out of their everyday lives into a world of valour and courage and truth.</p><p>Maul’s eyes were at their most golden when he watched his friend, who would practise great famous soliloquies to imagined applause, after the crowds had cleared each night. </p><p><em>I can wait</em>, Maul thought. <em>He only has one heart, but he will hear it soon.</em></p><p>Then Old Qui-Gon, whose craft was dreamy lovers and tragic fools, found he missed roaming the open lanes of space, and took his leave of the players. And so there was an opening in the Twelve Master’s Men, but just one; and the best of friends had both auditioned, swearing to good humour whatever the consequence. </p><p>But Maul knew how it would fall out, and so it did; the part and the place in the company had gone to Obi-Wan, who had a twinkle in his eye and a light, quirked manner that well-suited a fairy king. And Maul was jealous, for he knew in his hearts that the whole galaxy would fall in love as he had, and Obi-Wan’s love would be spread wider still in return. And Maul grieved, for he knew the rules of the company, and that he had waited too long.</p><p>The eve before the play opened, he had sought through the tiring house ‘til he found Obi-Wan, who was laughing at the sight of himself in the newly-fitted costume for Oberon: all wide sleeves and gauze.</p><p>“My lord Oberon,” Maul had addressed him, and swept a mock-bow. </p><p>Obi-Wan had turned with a wide boyish smile and threw a hug around Maul, before clapping hands on his shoulders to look into his face.</p><p>“Come now, my brother, why look you so sad? I know that our dream has come true for me before you, but just wait a little longer. Soon enough you will have your place in the company and it will be everything you have hoped.”</p><p>Maul smiled, felt his face flush beneath his tattoos as Obi-Wan’s smiled back at him, felt his hearts double-skip, screwed up his courage. Grasped for the words, as clear as he was able to make them.</p><p>“So you have everything you have ever hoped, being in the company? Your heart wants for nothing?”</p><p>“For nothing, my friend!” Maul remembered how Obi-Wan’s eyes had sparked with delight as he spoke. “Even if I were to play no part but Oberon for the rest of my days, I could call myself the happiest of men.”</p><p><em>I waited too long</em>, Maul thought. <em>He has no heart to spare.</em></p><p>Now Obi-Wan was spending long hours with his fellow players, instead of orbiting them with Maul. Somehow there was no more time to herd tookas out from under the stage, or to swing dizzily from the balustrade of the six-credit seats. </p><p>Heartsore and lonely, Maul had sought a place with the newly-formed Lord Chancellor’s Men, who had quickly thrown up the walls of a rival playhouse: The Raxus. And though the Lord Chancellor’s Men were unavoidably of lower repute (and their theatre rather too close for comfort to the rancor-baiting pits), Maul’s star had climbed rapidly with them, and his name had laddered to the top of playbills. </p><p>He revealed a talent for the most complicated, ragged roles – stalking the dark-stained boards as an oozing Iago, a razor’s-edge Angelo, a bile-spitting Lady Macbeth. He found them easy; he played each character as though the world was closing down around them.</p><p>In those first years, Maul had sometimes seen Obi-Wan in the crowd, that open face shining with admiration and pride. But Maul could not look him in the eye, did not want the crumbs of a heart that had promised itself to a whole galaxy.</p><p>Obi-Wan was gathering a train of fame too, which – Maul supposed – meant longer parts and longer study and more of a hand in managing the theatre. That famous face, now with a beard creeping onto it, stopped appearing at The Raxus. Maul still went to The Temple, but went robed and hooded, lounged at the back of the pit, invisible among the jostling of the groundlings.</p><p>Then came the pinch – the season that both the Lord Chancellor’s Men and the Twelve Masters’ Men mounted a production of <em>Romeo and Juliet,</em> and each cast their rising star as the moonstruck young Sith. Two playhouses, two Romeos, and a frenzy of comparison on the holo-net. </p><p>Maul found himself called the rival of the man he still loved, and found it was far easier to be a rival than a forgotten friend. Talked up his distain for The Temple and its extravagance and elitism. Found comfort in insulting Obi-Wan’s performances from afar – <em>shallow, applause-hungry, over-polished till dull. </em></p><p>Maul knew that he was setting fire to all his bridges, but heard with a dark miserable glee that Obi-Wan had began to return his scorn, though couched in politer, more sarcastic terms. </p><p>Then when a real fire ripped through The Raxus – started by an ion-cannon stage effect gone awry – and left Maul walking on powered limbs, he had heard no word, no letter of concern from his erstwhile-friend. That should have been the end of everything. Instead, Maul found a new form of rage. His life, empty without Obi-Wan in it, had almost ended, and the man didn’t even <em>care</em>. </p><p>Maul walked out on the Lord Chancellor’s Men and walked right back into The Temple, where the Twelve Masters’ Men welcomed (with clear delight) the finest actor in the Core worlds, once their rivals’ most prized asset.</p><p>And Obi-Wan and Maul found themselves face to face again, on the stage they had once hidden laughing beneath.</p><p>And Maul had told himself,<em> I will ruin him. I will raze his golden life to the ground. I will scorch his heart.</em></p><p>Briefly, in that cool moonlight of their midnight meeting, he had dared to hope.</p><p>But that hope was no more than a stage trick. Powder thrown into a candle-flame. A flash that fools took for lightning.</p><p>If Obi-Wan’s heart ever spoke to him of more than fame, he didn’t know how to hear it.</p><p>
  <em>We are done.</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. ACT FOUR</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><strong>ACT FOUR<br/>
</strong> <strong>THE STAGE</strong></p><p class="InterlineFormatApplier_fontSize_15px"> </p><p>Between his exhaustion and the cheap ale that Anakin had drowned them in at the tavern, Obi-Wan was not wakeful, but lost in dreams of smoking hellmouths in the black of space.</p><p>He woke late and blurrily, grimacing and blinking at the ceiling, pulling a hand over his face, his ruffled beard. The prickings of memory arrived like a sour taste in his mouth, as he remembered last night’s words and all that lay broken beneath them.</p><p>
  <em>We are done.</em>
</p><p>What’s more, what was done could never really have begun. What madness had possessed him last night? That he had forgot the code of the company which forbad players from flirtation. The thing was undone before it began, and silenced before it was spoken. Obi-Wan rolled over on to his face and let out a despairing groan.</p><p>Which turned into a laugh, as he found himself almost perfectly in the pose of the love-sick Governor Orsino, just as he had lain on stage the night before. Obi-Wan had never been one for self-pity, and his complaint dissolved into seafoam on a wave of mirth at how ridiculous a figure he had become, straight out of a crossed-stars comedy. And in such a short span! Oh, it was hopeless! an utter mess, everything ruined! and yet! he could not help but feel giddy with the joy of <em>loving</em>, of <em>wanting</em>!</p><p>His heart had lacked it for many a long season – despite how often he feigned devotion on stage. Now jealousy and distain had turned their coats inside out, to reveal true and blazing colours. His heart gave a little open-mouthed leap at discovering the change in himself. Where there had been a heavy, tarred knot in his stomach, so dense and settled into his core that he had carried it for an age without knowing – now there was hope, yearning, brightness, as of light seen through clear water. Softly, lips scarcely moving so that it was more of a breath than a word, he let himself name it:</p><p>“Maul.”</p><p>Hang the code of the company! He loved him! He loved him! </p><p>So Maul was done? – no matter. He, Obi-Wan, was just beginning, and though this bout was unscripted, he did not intend to lose.</p><p>He rose, dressed in his shirt and hose of cream and russet, and smoothed himself out as best he could, marvelling at how long it was since he had attended to his own looks instead of those of his characters. His beard was now trimmed neatly, of course, but his garb was simple, homely – was that good? or bad? when Maul preferred slashed silks and puffed hose? He laughed softly at himself again, at the sight of himself fussing like a greensick youth many years too late.</p><p>But as he set off towards the theatre and the object of his resolve, his confidence wilted a little under the ruthless Coruscanti sun. Was he an Orsino in truth: deluded, mistaking indifference for affection? Perhaps he had misread; learned the wrong part; entering confidently into the wrong scene.</p><p>As he walked, and the city around him heaved in the heat, Obi-Wan ran his mind over everything Maul had said since their mutual silence had been broken that midnight under the moon.</p><p>
  <em>I shall not struggle to act that I wish to ruin you.</em>
</p><p>Once, when visiting Senate House, Obi-Wan had seen a painting of two Mandalorian diplomats, one of them in an elaborate headdress that made his heart ache. A passing aide paused to point out the painting’s secret: when viewed from the side, a strange smudge on the table resolved itself into a death’s-head shape: a Mandalorian helm of war. </p><p>When you stood before them, all of Maul’s words expressed the loathing of a bittered rival. And, perhaps... the anger of a friend betrayed. Obi-Wan had held Maul so long in his mind as only <em>the rival</em>, that he had tried not to remember the days of their friendship. The sting was too sharp. Cleaner to forget. </p><p>But Maul... Maul had come back to The Temple. Maul talked of <em>two scrappish boys playing at heroics</em>. Maul had called him <em>Oberon</em>, the name of his first part – the cause of their parting, as Obi-Wan now remembered, at last, at last.</p><p>All this time, had Maul been remembering?</p><p>And perhaps more deeply than Obi-Wan, because Obi-Wan still could not fathom what was meant by <em>having had his choice twice over</em>.</p><p>And so then. If you walked around to the side of the painting, and viewed it along its edge, was there another picture: a man who had waited, for years with no encouragement, as Obi-Wan dropped him, forgot him and then pushed him into enmity. A man who had become sharpened and snarled by long years alone. A man who perhaps, after hearing death’s burning wings beating too close, had come as close as he could bear to asking if his affection could ever be returned.</p><p>
  <em>Leave if you must, but first tell me why you came.</em>
</p><p>The question to be answered was, Obi-Wan thought, as he arrived at the theatre and set his jaw:</p><p>Which face of Maul was the true one: the one that faced the world, or the one you saw out of the corner of your eye, when you stood at his side.</p><p class="InterlineFormatApplier_fontSize_15px"> </p><p>☽☾☽☾☽☾</p><p class="InterlineFormatApplier_fontSize_13_23px"> </p><p>That day, as he stitched at a jerkin, Obi-Wan penned and crumpled a thousand speeches in his head, trying to decide whether to beg, proposition, insinuate or entreat. But it was all for naught. Maul did not appear at the playhouse all day – did not even dress there, but walked straight on to the stage, already costumed as a louche and velveted Don John with a lounging hedonic aspect that made Obi-Wan’s stomach lurch with what he now knew as longing. </p><p>When they were on stage, Maul addressed any lines meant for Benedick slightly over Obi-Wan’s shoulder. Obi-Wan tried to corner him between acts, but he was evaded with studied indifference, Maul quitting each room as soon as his pursuer entered it, vanishing blackly into the night after the close of the last scene.</p><p>The same scene played out the next day – any moment Maul was not performing, he slipped away from all of Obi-Wan’s attempts to speak with him apart. </p><p>Though indeed that night Maul spent most of his time on the stage; Obi-Wan watched from the wings as Maul walked with his metal calves bared: a scuttling, scheming, magnetic Richard III, the bottled-spider king. What Obi-Wan had once thought jealousy of another player’s skill, he now felt as awe, a desire that was twisted up with worship. His heart burned with the sparks Maul struck from his burnished words; with how he swept the whole theatre into following his every movement, every word.</p><p>But after the jig, once more, Maul was gone. </p><p class="InterlineFormatApplier_fontSize_15px"> </p><p>☽☾☽☾☽☾</p><p class="InterlineFormatApplier_fontSize_13_23px"> </p><p>The theatre closed the next night, as it did twice every ten days, and Obi-Wan was lost without it.</p><p>Not knowing what he hoped to find there, Obi-Wan paid the ferry-droid and crossed down into one of the planet’s many deep, dwelling-encrusted shafts, down to the lower levels where the roar of the taverns and the rumble of the rancour-baiting pits sounded all day and night long, in the perpetual twilight. </p><p>Obi-Wan wrapped himself deep in his robe and pushed through the powder-keg crowds, until the The Raxus loomed above him – the roistering, noisesome cousin of his own playhouse. It stood out among the smog-greyed buildings around it for being freshly painted with brash colours, but Obi-Wan knew this was but the dressing on a wound.</p><p> </p><p><em>He had stood in this same spot some months past, </em> <em>when The Raxus was no more than a beam-skeleton, gutted and smoke-blackened, clumps of ash still drifting on the air currents. The fire started by a backfiring laser-cannon had been a terrible one, though he had heard almost all had escaped unhurt. </em></p><p>
  <em>For many minutes Obi-Wan had hovered, waiting for his courage to find him, before he finally resolved: he would ask the next person he saw enter the ruin whether Maul yet lived, and what house he lay in, or ask them to carry a message. What the message would say, he did not yet know, or whether it would be addressed to a rival, or one who had once been a friend. He had felt a twist of regret that their acquaintance – for they had been close, though he avoided thinking of it – had dissolved into an enmity whipped up by the holo-ballads. He should not have let it happen, and it was time to make amends.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But the next person to approach the smoking ruin was not one of the players, most of whom he was on nodding terms with – but the company’s patron himself: the Lord Chancellor.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Obi-Wan knew the Chancellor: Lord Palpatine had once tried to offer employment with his company, but Obi-Wan mistrusted  the politicking aristocrat, and had few good words to spare for his playhouse, so their conversation had ended perfunctorily. Yet clearly that little meeting was sufficient for the Chancellor’s memory, for when he caught sight of Obi-Wan he crossed over, face stretched in a wide creased smile, lifting his furred robes up over the soft ashes that lined the ground.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“So, Master Kenobi, you have come to spy on our ruin for your friends? Or is it to gloat at our misfortune? I had not thought you would stoop so low, to visit the levels so far beneath you.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I am here on no one’s commission, my Lord,” Obi-Wan had replied, with a neat shallow bow, “but only to enquire after the health of the company.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Ah, is your famous rival out of the game, you mean?” The Lord Chancellor gave an oily chuckle. “So then you have heard the rumours. Temper your hopes – he lives, though nearly half of him was consumed by the fire. But I spared no expense in droidsmiths, and he will be walking and raking in credits before the month is out. What? His lodging? I’Force, man you are the last being he could wish to see! Must you triumph over him as he lies broken? For shame, Master Kenobi.” The politician tutted, shaking his head in condescension. “For shame.” </em>
</p><p><em>And it was shame that Kenobi had felt. He had turned on his heel and caught the ferry (with no small relief) back up to the planet’s surface, trying to leave behind him in the dark the voice that whispered: </em>this was his fault, if it had not been for him Maul could have been part of the Twelve Master’s Men years ago, and would even now be safe, unburned, whole<em>.</em></p><p>
  <em>Obi-Wan had pushed the embers of that shame down, through his boots and under the earth, and buried them deep. </em>
</p><p class="InterlineFormatApplier_fontSize_15px"> </p><p>This time, Obi-Wan paid the fee at the door and pushed his way into the pit, finding himself in the middle of both a play and a scuffle among his fellow groundlings.</p><p>As his ear caught a few words, he discovered the play was almost <em>Prince of Dantooine</em>; but a crooked version: not the true text, but one constructed from remembered fragments of the licensed play seen elsewhere. A grey, willowy woman with a black doublet and a black-lined mouth held the stage, and was hissing scrambled stolen verses to the audience:</p><p><em>“To defeat this pleasing devil, I’ll find firmer ground,<br/>
</em> <em>And a truer relating: the play’s the thing<br/>
</em> <em>Wherein I’ll find my conscience, and catch a king!”</em></p><p>Obi-Wan ducked to avoid the tussling limbs of half a dozen species. Whillsblood, he hated this place! It was all brawls and nonsense words. Maul did not belong here, had never belonged here. Yet Maul had praised it most devotedly. Why? </p><p>As Obi-Wan watched the scenes play on, he sometimes caught a glimpse of something shining among the garbled words – the deep-voiced player had that quality of direct speech that Maul shared, a line straight from her lips to listening ears, a rousing flame that seemed to charge the passions of the audience and make them roar and shout. It was a dangerous, captivating style of playing, with no studied poses or attention to poetic feet. It was raw, and sharp, and in some moments hit true.</p><p>He heard Maul’s words, as if his mouth was at his ear: </p><p>
  <em>If you have never felt it, you have not lived. It will set you free.</em>
</p><p>Obi-Wan returned to his lodgings buried in thought. </p><p>That night, as the light of Coruscant Prime worked its silvery way across the ceiling, Obi-Wan tore a corner from his <em>Coriulanus </em>part, and scratched out nine words in his neat secretary’s hand:</p><p><em>act four scene five<br/>
</em> <em>I mean what I speak.</em></p><p class="InterlineFormatApplier_fontSize_15px"> </p><p>☽☾☽☾☽☾</p><p class="InterlineFormatApplier_fontSize_13_23px"> </p><p>The next evening was the opening of the new play. Obi-Wan had no more nervousness left for the excitement of the first night – his whole resolve had been poured into the corner of flimsi he held tight in his hand. </p><p>When he reached The Temple, he dispatched the note to Maul by way of the scrappy Rodian urchin who could usually be found kicking her heels outside the theatre, ready to run any errand in exchange for being snuck in to watch that evening's play. He regretted it immediately, but she was fast and then it was too late.</p><p>There was nothing to do but find costumes, paint faces, don armour and wait, ’til later that evening the audience filled the theatre up to its brim; the trumpets sounded; and the play began.</p><p>It was a tricky and serious text, concerning politics and revolt, full of discordant voices and the clamour of war. Obi-Wan was glad of its violence and solemnity, as he was so tight with nerves he did not think he could have raised a smile or a laugh – they were not nerves for the part he had to play (he had left stage-fright far behind in his youth), but for how he would play it. </p><p>When he stepped on stage for the ill-fated first-act duel, he found he had to remind himself how to breathe. Maul truly was an impressive sight, his white stagesaber lighting up the silver of his armour, and the rivers of faked blood that ran down from his horns and tangled with the patterns of his face.</p><p>Obi-Wan saw a flicker of a smile pass across Maul’s face, could imagine the Dathomirian’s amusement that Obi-Wan, master of elocution, had nearly choked on a line. </p><p>But the scene passed as smoothly as could be hoped. Obi-Wan heard with apprehension that Maul’s scripted taunts were still speckled with what sounded like real venom. But he also thought that Maul was growing weary of the effort of avoiding his eyes.</p><p class="InterlineFormatApplier_fontSize_15px"> </p><p>☽☾☽☾☽☾</p><p class="InterlineFormatApplier_fontSize_13_23px"> </p><p>For Obi-Wan, the rest of the play passed in a daze, so much was his mind focused on one particular point in it. So scene five of act four was upon him almost before he knew, and he was pushed on stage by his scene-fellow, having almost missed his cue. </p><p>As he stumbled out of the wings, Maul-as-Coriulanus (with his back to the audience, standing dusty but proud in the shreds of his armour) cocked one eyebrow as if to say: <em>what have you for me, then?</em></p><p>Obi-Wan’s whole world narrowed to the stage, his lines and Maul.</p><p>And so he began.</p><p><em>“Say, what's thy name?<br/>
</em> <em>Thou hast a grim appearance, and thy face<br/>
</em> <em>Bears a command in't; though thy tackle's torn.<br/>
</em> <em>Thou show'st a noble vessel: what's thy name?”</em></p><p>Maul’s hidden expression was one of watchful scepticism, but his voice rang out clear and true:</p><p><em>“Prepare thy brow to frown: know'st<br/>
</em> <em>thou me yet?”</em></p><p><em>“I know thee not: thy name?” </em>Obi-Wan asked again, and Maul now turned to open his gloved hands to the audience in entreaty.</p><p><em>“My name is Caius Marcius, who hath done<br/>
</em> <em>To thee particularly and to all the Republic<br/>
</em> <em>Great hurt and mischief; thereto witness may<br/>
</em> <em>My surname, Coriulanus …”</em></p><p>The speech was long, but the audience was rapt, having seen this war hero raised up and thrown down in such a short space of time, and now come cap-in-hand to his once-sworn enemy to beg for sanctuary. They were hushed as Coriulanus placed his life in Aufidius’ hands, as Maul patterned his speech with notes of wounded pride and forced humility:</p><p><em>“… I also am<br/>
</em> <em>Longer to live most weary, and present<br/>
</em> <em>My throat to thee and to thy ancient malice;<br/>
</em> <em>Which not to cut would show thee but a fool,<br/>
</em> <em>Since I have ever follow'd thee with hate,<br/>
</em> <em>Drawn tuns of blood out of thy planet’s breast,<br/>
</em> <em>And cannot live but to thy shame, unless<br/>
</em> <em>It be to do thee service.”</em></p><p>This, now, was Obi-Wan’s plan. </p><p>He shed the straight-backed pose of soldier Aufidius, dropped his carefully studied syllable rhythms, and speaking without accent, without affectation, seized Maul’s hands.</p><p><em>“Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart<br/>
</em> <em>A root of ancient envy. If the Father<br/>
</em> <em>Should from yond cloud speak divine things,<br/>
</em> <em>And say 'Tis true,' I'ld not believe them more<br/>
</em> <em>Than thee, all noble Marcius.” </em></p><p>With his eyes, Obi-Wan was begging Maul to understand that though the reconciliation of enemies was part of the play, he <em>meant</em> this, from the sundered deeps of his heart. He was desperate for Maul to understand that he was throwing character to the winds so that he could say – in the only moment that Maul would look at him – what he wanted more than anything:</p><p><em>“…. Let me twine<br/>
</em> <em>Mine arms about that body, where against<br/>
</em> <em>My grained ash an hundred times hath broke<br/>
</em> <em>And scarr'd the moon with splinters.”</em></p><p>The text was calling for them to share a soldierly embrace, but Maul still looked wary, suspicious of a trick, and Obi-Wan didn’t dare break eye-contact, so only gripped Maul’s gloved fists still tighter. </p><p><em>Believe me</em>, he willed, as he spoke on.</p><p><em>“… here I clip<br/>
</em> <em>The anvil of my sword, and do contest<br/>
</em> <em>As hotly and as nobly with thy love</em><br/>
<em>As ever in ambitious strength I did<br/>
</em> <em>Contend against thy valour.”</em></p><p>Maul was looking openly at him now, his attention caught by the thrum of sincerity in Obi-Wan’s words, his gaze searching, interrogatory.</p><p><em>Do you truly mean it?</em> those gold-splintered eyes seemed to say, and Obi-Wan could yet see a ghost of doubt in them, could even now see Maul beginning to slide away from him again, the scarred distance opening up between them, knew Maul would be gone forever if this moment passed—</p><p>And so, in the middle of the stage of The Temple, under the moon and the soft candlelight and the rings of hundreds of watching faces – Obi-Wan kissed him.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for waiting so long for me to get to my own act four scene five.</p><p>Let me repeat my apologies to Shakespeare for fucking about with his poetry. I’m convinced he’d have liked Coriolanus and Aufidius to snog tho, I mean “let me twine mine arms about that body” WHEW okay!!</p><p>The trick painting Obi saw is of course based on Holbein’s The Ambassadors. </p><p>Act five is outlined but not written, so I must ask for one more round of patience.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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